


to the overwhelming light surrounding us

by inkwelled



Series: that we may fall in love every time we open up our eyes [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Child Abandonment, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Innocent love, Listen...I Love These Two, Orphans, Parallels, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-12 01:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkwelled/pseuds/inkwelled
Summary: both of them, she finds, are lost.





	to the overwhelming light surrounding us

**Author's Note:**

> i turned seventeen today and i thought why not celebrate by posting the two fics that have aged like fine wine in the vault that is my wip folder?
> 
> title from [light](https://genius.com/Sleeping-at-last-light-lyrics) by sleeping at last

Both of them, she finds, are lost.

He’s a little boy with no family, no memories of a mother or father, no name. His skin is dark and his armor is white, but his real armor is beneath the surface, cracking with each smile and embrace. His eyes are brown and warm and inviting and in the night, he calls out names she does not recognize.

She’s a little girl with no family, no memories of a mother or father, no name. Her skin is light and her hair is dark, and her armor brews beneath her skin, cautious but wavering with each kind word and gentle reassurance. Her fingers are calloused and sharp and unwilling and in the daylight, she sees that cruiser flying farther and farther away.

In the end, they’re both just wandering in a world that is not their own, one they have no part in.

 

 

The first time they properly meet, in the hallway outside of the cockpit that allows her to soar away from the only planet she’s only known - she refuses to say it’s her home, for a home is a family and safety and comfort - he asks her name, and she panics, because no one has ever asked her her name.

_What is her name?_

So she smiles and says her name is Rey, the name on the helmet she likes to wear on nights the sun stretches long across the horizon of never-ending heat and sand and the lines scratched into the wall torment her.

The first time they properly meet - in the hallway outside the cockpit that allows him to soar away from the life he’d been forced into - he refuses to say it’s his life, because a life owned by someone is not one taken - she asks his name, and he panics, because only one person has ever asked his name.

_What was his name?_

So he smiles and says his name is Finn, the name given to him by the pilot with the heart of gold that brought that first ray of light into his life and the stupid-willful bravery that bore the mark across his eye and the death in the sand.

 

 

"Did he hurt you?"

In the next three seconds, her face shifts like an old movie maker, something from long, long ago, and when her features finally settle on relief and surprise, his heart breaks even further.

She drops her blaster, pulls him closer, burying her head in his shoulder, and the force he hugs her back with might scare him if he didn’t know how durable she is. He wants to treat her like porcelain, like something fragile and something that has to be shielded from the world, but he’s too late.

She needed that ages ago.

His arms around her, his nose pressed against the wraps that she’s spent her entire life wearing to protect herself, he breathes in the smell of sweat and sand and heat and determination, and the scent is so _Rey_ that it makes his knees weak.

"What did he say?"

For three seconds, she’s not sure how to feel; she goes from anger, to sadness, to surprise and heartbreak and relief, and she sees that he sees, despite the lack of words. But there’s no need for words when she drops her walls, pulls him closer, and her heart fractures a little bit.

_No one’s ever come back for her._

She’s known him for only days, only hours and minutes, but it feels like forever.

“That it was your idea.”

Her arms wrapped around him, nose pressed into the jacket from the pilot that saved him from a life that wasn’t his own, she breathes in mint and sweat and cleanliness and the scent is so _Finn_ that it makes his knees weak.

 

 

When her cries shatter the red-tinted air around them, something primal and scared and _lonely_ at the loss of someone she held in her heart as a father, all he wants to do is hold her tight and never let go. The world has shaped this girl, this little girl alone on Jakku, into this piece of marble that cracks further and further with every blow.

He doesn’t know how much more she - _and him_ \- can take.

When his arms wrap around her, holding her fragile broken body and heart _alike_ together, all she wants to do is hold him back, tight. The world has shaped this boy, this little boy alone on a starship, into this piece of marble that fractures further and further with every blow.

She doesn’t know how much more he - and she - can take before they shatter.

 

 

The pure lightning that carves its way up his back is more agonizing than anything he’s ever experienced in his life, but it doesn’t hurt his heart as much as her cries. The sound of his name on her lips, once something that made his heart soar, now makes it plummet because it’s screamed with such _panic._

His cheek against the snow, he struggles to stay away long enough to watch her summon the lightsaber into her palm, send him a look, and cross lightning with the man that tortured her and picked apart her brain in the most painful way.

The last thought that loops through his head like a broken record is that he’s never seen her so determined.

The pure lightning that carves it way across his face is most satisfying thing she’s ever done with her own two hands, but his screams aren’t nearly enough to quell the rage inside her. The sound of _him,_ once making her hardened heart soften, now makes it harden with pure _panic._

Her lightsaber crackling against the demon’s in front of her, she struggles to keep upright as the chasm behind her gapes open, inviting and tempting her to just let him fall - it would be so easy - but unlike him, she’s human, so she pushes back and grants him something he didn’t to his own father.

 

 

Her tears are warm against her cheeks, cold against her heart as they drip onto his face, and she accepts her face. He never abandoned her, never left her behind, and she will repay this debt.

She buries her face in the leather jacket that has seeped lava into his back wounds and cooled ice against the lash, and thinks that if she is to die, dying on a cold planet with the person who is the closest thing she has to a family, she is happy.

 

 

Her promise is broken.

She spends day in and day out at his bedside, watching the rise and fall of his chest, of the line on the monitors that she doesn’t understand but still sends pure panic through her when it plummets, but life carries on. Kylo Ren is still out there, licking his wounds, but he will return, and she must be ready.

She straps her pack to her back and in the medbay, leans over to brush her lips over his warm skin, and with every step away from him, her walls break a little more.

Rey must find Luke Skywalker.

 

 

When he wakes, she isn’t by his bedside, in the shadows, smiling down at him and his head spins.

“You must have a thousand questions.”

Instead, the brave pilot.

“Where’s Rey?"

**Author's Note:**

> there may be a sequel, if the last jedi doesn't disappoint


End file.
